Tag: Climate Change

Who Says No? A Climate Change Compromise

Many on the left are up in arms over Trump backing out of the Paris agreement. Ignoring the fact that the agreement says that countries are free to set their own targets and their own policies and is largely symbolic anyway, let’s work under the assumption that liberals actually believe that this policy is disastrous for the earth’s future. In fact, let’s start from the (perhaps ridiculous) assumption that everybody in this debate is being intellectually honest.

Then Republicans have a great opportunity. Offer Democrats a compromise. The United States will re-enter the Paris agreement. And they’ll go even further. Democrats will be given full control over all matters of the environment. Carbon taxes, cap and trade, clean energy subsidies, whatever they want. Completely blank check.

In return, Republicans get everything else. They can pass whatever tax code they want, any deregulation they want. Democrats will have no say in healthcare, no control over education, no input at all over any issue except climate.

So my question is: who says no? Republicans (and Trump) have to go back on one of their key issues and allow the Democrats free reign. But for sucking up their pride on one thing they get everything they’ve ever wanted for a whole range of others. And what about the Democrats? Sure they’d be sacrificing a lot. In their view, we’d be significantly worse off in the short run. But isn’t that worth saving the world? If the results of climate change are truly catastrophic, isn’t it worth some people in the richest country in the world not having health insurance? Isn’t it worth middle class Americans being required to take out student loans to attend college?

Now maybe there are some issues that are as important as climate. If you think Republican control of the military would lead to nuclear war, then of course that can’t be part of the deal. Fine, keep that one. I’ll even throw in gun control, another issue that seems to be of vital importance for the left.  You can come up with your own list of some other issues you would never want to compromise on to save the world. But that list should be very small.

So who says no? I can’t imagine any Republican ever denying the above compromise. But I also doubt a single Democrat would take it. If that prediction is right, we are left with three possible conclusions. The first, which I think we can rule out, is that Democrats believe giving Republicans complete control over anything would be worse than the end of the world. The second, which could be true, is that they believe they can convince Republicans of the correctness of their view without conceding too much. Considering their lack of success to this point, and the apparent urgency with which they believe something needs to be done, this also seems unlikely. So we are left with the third, and in my opinion most likely, option: Despite their rhetoric, Democrats are simply not that concerned about climate change.

Climate of Complete Outrage How the Reaction to Bret Stephens Proves His Point

The New York Times recently caused a stir by hiring Bret Stephens, a conservative journalist, for their opinion page. Stephens holds many views that clash with some of the sacred cows of the progressive movement. These ideological breaches include criticizing Black Lives Matter, saying that campus rape is not an “epidemic,” and denying that climate change will result in catastrophic changes. Naturally, his hiring has brought forth the ire of the left, and the recent publication of his first article has caused an explosion of hatred across my Twitter feed. If you haven’t already, go read the article here before continuing.

Now, just for a few minutes try to put aside any pre-existing biases you have and let’s look at Stephens article as objectively as possible. The article, titled Climate of Complete Certainty, does not argue that climate change is a hoax (“None of this is to deny climate change or the possible severity of its consequences”). It doesn’t claim that we should reject any attempts to mitigate the effects of a changing climate. Its message actually has very little to do with climate change itself. Instead Stephens attempts to make a broader point about intellectual discourse: nothing is ever certain, and pretending that it is will never convince somebody on the other side. Arrogance does not induce agreement.

It doesn’t seem like anybody listened. The responses have instead ranged from further asserting that climate change is real (which Stephens didn’t deny in this article), threatening to cancel NYT subscriptions, and attacking Stephens himself. This kind of reaction is exactly what Stephens warned about. Rather than engage his argument with a reasonable response, his opponents don’t give even a sliver of probability to the idea that he might have a point.

Disagree with the left and you’re not just wrong – you’re an idiot. You’re not just uninformed – you’re ignorant. You’re not just a skeptic – you’re evil. Some people might be 100% sure that climate change is real and that we need to do something about it right now to prevent catastrophic consequences. The reality is that some people aren’t so sure.

Perhaps it is true that the evidence is against climate skeptics. Maybe they don’t have a great argument to support their side. And certainly the scientific consensus seems to be that global warming is likely to be a major problem (although for everyone who likes to use this argument as the end of the discussion, I hope none of you agreed with Gerald Friedman’s analysis of Bernie Sanders’s economic plan either – the consensus among trained economists was just as strong against his calculations). That’s not the point. Regardless of whether you believe climate skepticism is stupid or not, the best way to convince somebody their ideas are stupid is not to tell them they are stupid. Instead the first task should be to understand why they think differently than you do.

But there’s an even bigger problem here. The certainty in the correctness of ideas also leads to outrage at the notion that anybody else could believe otherwise. And it’s not just climate. After Brexit passed last year, JK Rowling tweeted “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted magic more.” Really? Never? Even in the worst possible case of the effects of Brexit I can’t imagine it shaving more than a couple percentage points off GDP. From the UK. One of the richest countries in the world. Maybe magic could’ve helped with terrorist attacks, or disease, or starvation, or Syria, or the millions of other atrocities that occur on this earth every day. Nope. Brexit is the worst thing that’s ever happened. Well besides Trump. And whatever Paul Ryan said most recently. And this article. Wait, how many worst things ever can there be?

When every little point of dissension results in this level of vitriol, what is left for truly important issues? If we treat Trump like Hitler, what do we do in case of an actual Hitler? I don’t want to claim excessive outrage is the exclusive domain of the left either. Hillary Clinton’s emails. The Benghazi attack. Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. Outrage from the right at all of them. Everything has become a game where it doesn’t matter how trivial the issue is as long as the other side comes out looking bad.

This is not debate. In a debate each side offers their perspective and their reasoning. The goal is to change minds, to convince the other side that your evidence is more compelling than theirs. More and more it seems that nobody actually wants that kind of discussion. The goal for many today doesn’t appear to be to change anyone’s mind. It’s much simpler: crush the dissenters (or maybe cut them open HT: Vitaly Titov).

But if you really want to change minds, I have a few suggestions. Don’t start with “How could you think that?” but “Why do you think that?” Don’t argue from outrage, but from compassion. And don’t attack Bret Stephens. Listen to him.